When someone says that in their opinion the Earth is flat, you don't nod along and tell them that they are entitled to their opinion. You call them an idiot. Coincidentally, that's also what you do with the posts about how GW2 is dead.

Sorry but i'm going to sound like an arse once more... there has to be something to work towards. There are cheaper alternatives to get you statistically there; if you want the prestige cultural armor than it's a goal to work to.

Also; buying gems for real money and exchanging for gold isn't the only way to make gold in this game :-/

Since we are roughly 12 hours away from what could be the official begin of head start, I just wanted to take a moment to thank Arenanet for their hardwork, dedication, and responsiveness(with regard to our feedback). You have developed a great MMO, and I hope launch goes smoothly, not only for us players but you as developers.

Make us proud and good luck!

I also wanted to add that I am not soliciting a response from Arenanet, just wishing them success with the launch!

At least 4 of those have the wrong skin/ weapon types e.g. frostfang = axe, bolt = sword, incinerator = dagger, moot = mace etc. Also as has been said, animations make all the difference. Wait until you see an ingame vid before making an opinion if they're cool or not.

But a little heads up, unless you like shooting flowers or rainbows then I'd stay away from bows xD

I'm more inclined to think it is an intended effect that's simply undocumented rather than a bug, though perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part as I abused the hell out of this effect in BWE3. It's so, so good for both offense and defense...

You mention that they're "clothies." I've thought on that point a little bit. They want the Mesmer to be an "arcane duelist" and there's some evidence that they're rather difficult to play at a power level comparable to the other professions. I doesn't seem like it would be out of line for them to make Mesmer an Adventurer ("leathery") instead.

Class mechanics should expand your options and work in 100% of the situations in the game. They aren't all up to par in that regard, but that should be the ultimate goal and the illusion/shatter system falls well short of it.

While I definitely agree that Mesmers current mechanics work pretty poorly in PvE and to a lesser extent WvW, I don't think they are actually as bad as people make it seem to be. I don't think anything is broken at all. I've never had a difficult time playing the class or felt like it was not living up to my expectations. Most of the concerns are mainly minor annoyances such as illusions constantly despawning in events and such with mobs constantly dying.

Expecting a class as complex and intricate as ours to have perfect balance across all the builds and perfect harmony between PvP/PvE/WvW is just unrealistic, if not impossible. That's one the reasons ArenaNet is allowing such great customization and ease of trait/weapon swapping in this game, so you can adjust and morph accordingly to bring whatever you can to the current situation. Using the same build and weapon set for everything in the game 100% of the time would be boring. Learning how to adjust your play and work around your classes faults in every situation is what makes playing these games fun.

Zebes, on 23 June 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

You can play shatter or phantasm style. You can adjust the shatters to be more supportive, but you are stuck with those two playstyles.

You can just as easily play a condition or support build as well as a shatter or phantasms build. People just don't because they always want to play whatever spec happens to be doing the most dmg at the current time. Shatters for BWE1, and phantasms for BWE2.

If condition builds did the most dmg in BWE3, what do you think everyone would start playing?

Though it may sound flip: if illusions are really our class mechanic, then I'd really rather see them on the F-keys rather than taking up useful weapon real estate, imo. :\

Yep.

F-key illusion conjuring, and respective shatters as options in either weapon slot #2 or #3 - as well as relevant effect for the weapon.

Way too late for them to implement this, though.

And that's a shame - because, as I've said before, to me, making Shatters the core Profession mechanic, and putting illusion summoning on the weapons (according to their current model), was their true authentic error that has Mesmers in the current mess.

This is fine, other than the fact that those zeros hitting a player makes it clear they're being attacked by clones. Part of the problem with zero damage clones is it weakens their status as tools of deception. I have to say, that clones doing their like 10% damage before wasn't a real threat damage wise, and having them do that damage and surviving a bit longer isn't anywhere near "overpowered". The problem was unreliable shatters due to clones dying and the change looks designed to try to address that problem. There are other ways around that problem though, probably better ways.

Well, they aren't meant to distract people for long to begin with. If you can fool someone for 1,2,3 sec it is already good enough. Problem is that clones are very easy to tell apart from player due to their behavior. They also don't provide any defense in AoE situation when you are hit regardless of them.

The only time I use a shatter is when I try to avoid massive damage by using Distortion.

This.

That's how all of my condition builds so far have been played as well. Clones do their own damage (lolol @ BWE2) and apply conditions from the staff/sword MH weapons. Specifically with my builds, shattering clones is a waste of valuable damage, pressure and resources. The only time to shatter them would be to use Distortion or (until it got nerfed) MW spike damage to force a heal or finish off an enemy. The same could be said for most Phantasm builds as well.

Why should such builds be forced into shattering just to make the mechanic viable? Why should clones be shatter fodder when they are perfectly viable at condition stacking and added pressure? These builds are more fun imo than being forced to shatter them for any meaningful damage and even that was nerfed. Why people are wanting to force clones entirely into shatter fodder is beyond me. The only logical reason behind it that I can find is that there is an apparent lack of creativity.

Having the duelist as a playstyle IS a welcome addition. It was only hinted at in GW1, but now many players are choosing Mesmers specifically for the Main Hand swordplay. However I like the "ranged" caster playstyle much more, which is why I'm promoting that the Mesmer be groomed to have distinction from other scholars. It should be the same as the difference between a Warrior and a Guardian, they have things in common as melee fighters but excel in totally different areas.

Having a unique playstyle is what draws different players to each class so ArenaNet needs to carefully "underline" the differences and capitalize on them. I think the above post is a perfect example of someone who would never have played this class if it were like every other scholar....... So you "should care" if it farts fire balls because the "duelist" aspect is a Mesmer trait that was in the very first concept drawings. Without being "different" these nice sword attacks with "evasion" would never have been created.

Having a specific condition for each seems interesting, but you don't want to run into the trouble of making them too good and condition stacking so people end up not shattering their clones, just like people were doing with phantasm builds in BWE2.

Why?

Having them good enough to not want to shatter them is what has been giving us a variety of builds in the first place. Clone Army builds, Condition builds, shatter builds, phantasm builds; they took that away in BWE2 and what did we get stuck with? A fing cookie cutter Phantasm build that mostly became popular because it abused a bug for stupidly high damage.

I'm not saying clones need to deal damage, but what they are right now is pure garbage.